Dear K…
Give it a new title. Your personal affection for the old title isn’t enough to risk confusion—or any stigma there might be in republishing a title that most likely went OP because it wasn’t selling anymore. We insiders know that the shelf life of the average novel is surprisingly short (2 to 3 years, although with ebooks the definition of “shelf life” is shifting), but the general public doesn’t know this. New content + new cover + new title + new pub year + new isbn = new book for a new audience. Embrace that and run with it.
Happy writing!
The Editor
Interesting topic! Thanks for clearing this up for us.
Wow, great info. I didn’t know an author could acquire the rights back nor that ‘shelf life’ is 2-3 years. That’s rather frightening considering it might take 1-2 years to get word of mouth going. Thanks for the great info!